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Tuesday, May 26, 2015

10 Best Computer Hackers in Movie History

Every clued-up movie criminal or counter-criminal needs a good
hacker, right? And as technology in the real world has advanced, so the
potential to create more interesting, elaborate and possibly plausible
computer hacking plotlines has increased. The hackers in these stories
aren’t just geeks stuck behind desks, either. Sometimes they help save
the world, while occasionally they’re hell-bent on destroying it. But
whether they’re working for good or bad, mental rather than muscular
strength tends to be paramount. Here’s a look at ten of the most
memorable hackers in movie history.

10. Angela Bennett – The Net (1995)

The story in director Irwin Winkler’s 1995 cyber-thriller The Net
saw into a now-familiar future world of telecommuting workers – and
online relationships replacing face-to-face communication. Academy
Award-winner Sandra Bullock plays Angela Bennett, an introverted
computer expert who works from home and has practically no interaction
with people in person. However, while attempting to clean up what she
thinks is a computer virus, Bennett gets entangled in a game of
cyber-terror, murder and identity theft that’s all too real and present.
As things hot up, she uses her skills to access a hospital’s computer
system and gather information. Somehow, she finds a desperate will to
survive as she fights to regain her identity and expose the conspiracy
into which she’s been plunged.

9. Lyle – The Italian Job (2003)

Successfully pulling off the classic movie heist often requires a
crack team of experts working in several different fields, and that can
include everyone from the getaway driver to the more modern computer
hacker. In director F. Gary Gray’s 2003 remake of classic 1969 British
caper movie The Italian Job, one such team of pros steals $35
million worth of gold bars from a vault in Venice, Italy. The team is
then double-crossed by one of their own, Steve (played by Edward
Norton), who heads off to Los Angeles with the loot. Playing his part in
the team’s revenge scheme and subsequent escape, Lyle – portrayed by
Seth Green – hacks into the computers that control L.A.’s traffic
lights. He also uses his computing abilities to determine in which one
of three armored trucks Steve has stashed the gold, and the team regain
their twice-stolen spoils.

8. Raoul Silva – Skyfall (2012)

With Daniel Craig’s turn as the latest Bond came a more serious and
somewhat grittier tone for the movies – and with it possibly a darker
set of criminal adversaries. In the most recent installment, 2012’s Skyfall,
directed by Sam Mendes, Bond faces Javier Bardem’s former MI6
operative-turned-cybercriminal Raoul Silva. Silva’s intimidating glare,
deadpan manner and interesting hairstyle make him stand out as a Bond
villain, but it’s his sexually intimidating, homoerotic interrogation of
Bond during one particular scene that really turns tradition on its
head. As for his hacking activities, well how does masterminding access
to MI6’s database from M’s own PC and triggering a massive explosion
strike you? And what about fixing it so that when Q tries to hack into
Silva’s machine, the intelligence service’s security systems are
breached and the evil genius makes his escape. Yes, Q, “He hacked us.”
He definitely hacked us.

7. Matt Farrell – Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

In 2007, long-suffering detective John McClane (perennially played by
Bruce Willis) was back for a fourth run-out as the wrong guy in the
wrong place at the wrong time. The movie, of course, was Live Free or Die Hard,
directed by Len Wiseman. This time, McCLane is one of several police
officers charged with bringing in hackers who might be responsible for
cracking into the FBI’s Cyber Crime Division network. McLane picks up
Matt Farrell (played by Justin Long) – a hacker who’s inadvertently been
programming for the wrong team – and the real bad guys soon attack the
unlikely duo. Said criminals are professional killers employed by a
cyber terrorist who is planning a massive attack on U.S. computer
networks. Long is also known for playing the “Mac” character in Apple’s
“Get A Mac” commercials, which may have boosted his computing
credentials with nerdier moviegoers.

6. Stanley Jobson – Swordfish (2001)

In Dominic Sena’s 2001 big-budget thriller Swordfish, Hugh
Jackman plays paroled hacker Stanley Jobson, who seems keen to turn his
life around following a stint in jail for the crime of infecting and
disrupting an FBI surveillance system. However, crime boss Gabriel Shear
(played by John Travolta) is desperate to find the right hacker to help
him steal $9.5 billion from a top-secret U.S. government reserve fund.
Gabriel’s test for Stanley? Accessing a government network in less than a
minute while at gunpoint and getting head. Naturally, he
passes with flying colors. The movie features an impressive list of
Hollywood names, among them Don Cheadle and Halle Berry, as well as
Travolta and Jackman. And, guaranteeing the movie was a hit with certain
fanboys, Swordfish contained the first topless scene of
Berry’s career – seemingly a thinly-veiled, but nonetheless successful,
attempt to garner attention for an otherwise forgettable film.

5. David Lightman – WarGames (1983)

In John Badham’s 1983 Cold War-themed sci-fi movie WarGames,
Matthew Broderick plays high school computer whiz kid David Lightman – a
boy not averse to hacking into his school’s network to up both his
grades and those of a classmate. Using a bulky home computer and a
backdoor password, Lightman unwittingly hacks into the top-secret system
that controls America’s nuclear weapons. Believing he has hacked into
nothing more than the system of a computer games company, Lightman
decides to play “Global Thermonuclear War,” without realizing that he’s
on the verge of triggering World War III. Disaster is averted when
Lightman uses a game of tic-tac-toe to teach the computer program the
principle of mutually assured destruction, where “the only winning move
is not to play.”

4. Neo – The Matrix (1999)

Keanu Reeves played dual roles in hit 1999 sci-fi blockbuster The Matrix,
which was scripted and directed by the Wachowski Brothers. In one realm
the character is computer programmer Thomas Anderson, while in the
“real world” he goes by the hacker alias Neo – a man, the bad guys tell
us, is “guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for.”
When a mysterious character named Morpheus (played by Laurence
Fishburne) offers Anderson the chance to understand what “the Matrix” is
all about, Anderson soon discovers that his “reality” isn’t real at
all. And while some of the other hackers on our list might be content
with a computer and a modem, Neo gets bonus points for taking the direct
route and plugging himself directly into the virtual world using a port
situated in the back of his head.

3. Cosmo – Sneakers (1992)

Phil Alden Robinson’s 1992 caper Sneakers featured an
impressive ensemble cast of Hollywood stars, including greats like
Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd and Ben Kingsley, as well as
then-rising star River Phoenix. Hackers Martin Brice (played by
Redford) and Cosmo (portrayed by Kingsley) start out as students with
good intentions, using their computer skills to move conservative
finances towards more liberal ends. At the beginning of the movie, the
police bust into their room and Cosmo is detained, but Brice escapes
because he is getting pizza at the time. Later, the pair end up pitted
against each other. Brice, now known as Martin Bishop, heads up a team
of security systems specialists, while Cosmo has become involved with
organized crime following his time in jail. Though the movie got mixed
reviews, it was a box office hit that made more than $105 million.

2. Kevin Flynn/Clu – Tron (1982)

In Disney’s Steven Lisberger-directed 1982 cult sci-fi classic Tron,
Jeff Bridges plays software engineer Kevin Flynn, but he’s also the
face of hacker program Codified Likeness Utility (Clu). Flynn designed
Clu, and he uses the program for various hacking tasks, even
“correcting” his bank statement. Flynn is a computer wizard trying to
find evidence that his colleague Ed Dillinger (played by David Warner)
took his videogame designs. However, an AI computer program written by
Dillinger employs an experimental laser to transport Flynn into the
digital realm. With its integration of computer-generated imagery and
live action, Tron was a pioneering movie. The film’s influence led Pixar animation chief John Lasseter to comment, “Without Tron there would be no Toy Story.” A sequel, Tron: Legacy, which also starred Bridges, was released in 2010.

1. Lisbeth Salander – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Lisbeth Salander is the unforgiving agent and hacker with a photographic memory from Swedish writer Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series. Salander first appeared in Larsson’s 2005 book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo;
and her first on-screen appearance was in the 2009 Swedish film based
on that first novel, in which she is played by Swedish actress Noomi
Rapace. In the movie – directed by Niels Arden Oplev – Rapace portrays
the traumatized, asocial and introverted Salander as a quiet and moody
character who seems to use her tattoos, piercings and short temper as a
kind of self-defense, to stop anyone getting too close. Salander is
forced to team up with reporter Mikael Blomkvist (played by Michael
Nyqvist), and she finds a kindred spirit she can trust – as well as
someone whose computer she can hack into to gather vital clues about the
string of horrible murders they are trying to solve. In 2012, Rooney
Mara received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Salander in David
Fincher’s 2011 version of the film.